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by teamonkey 1564 days ago
Back of the envelope calculations.

1) Assume a 1x1m solar panel generates 150W at peak.

2) It won't manage that all the time, far from it. Lets say it generates 300Wh per sq. meter. per day, or 110kWh/m^2/year.

To achieve 80000TWh we'd need about 730million 1x1m panels. For comparison, google says the land area of New York city is 783million m2.

1 comments

You are off by a factor 1000. 80 PWh is 730 billion times 110 kWh.
Sorry, you're right. You'd need to cover a land area slightly larger than Texas.
Or much less than the Sahara Desert

Of course it's not just solar, throw in geothermal, tidal and wind too